Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Happy to sign on.

Public Service Announcement

Hello friends,

I've just taken an action with which I'm not very comfortable, but I think it's the right thing to do in the service of this community. I've revoked one of our member's authorship privileges on this blog. I took this step because a friend emailed me today to alert me that someone had lifted a post from my blog, comments and all (including an in-line reply from me) and claimed it as her own. Apparently she's done this to more than one knit blogger, and when I saw that several of the posts in question (including mine) had to do with the Baby Surprise Jacket, it occurred to me that she might be a member here. She was. I have no way of knowing whether she originally saw the content she stole on this board -- my post, at least, was taken from my personal blog and not from this one -- but I'd like this not to happen to any more knitters of Baby Surprise Jackets.

For my part, I've left her a comment politely asking that she remove my post from her site. Others have lodged formal complaints and had Wordpress delete their work from her blog.

I hope this little corner of the internet can continue to stand for mutual support and admiration plus fair play. Elizabeth and Meg have always gone to great lengths to credit their sources because it's the gracious thing to do. Let's uphold that spirit.

Thanks,Sarah

UPDATE: The blogger in question has contacted me to say that she doesn't know what happened to draw Zimmermania content to her blog, but that she is working with Wordpress support to correct the problem. It may all be a technical glitch; I'm willing to allow for computer error and reinstate this author if she lets me know the wires have been uncrossed and there's no longer any likelihood of this happening.

UPDATE #2: I've been corresponding with this author and I'm now convinced that she suffered a horrible blog malfunction (possibly even a hacker attack of some kind) and was NOT willfully stealing content from Zimmermania. She is working hard to delete all content that isn't her own. She is understandably frustrated and hurt by how quick readers, including me, were to assume she was thieving. I've apologized to her and I'll leave the comments open on this post in case anyone else wishes to do so.